Anne Darwin broke down in tears as she told a jury she contemplated suicide
because of the stress of living a lie over the faked death of her husband
John.

Mrs Darwin, 56, said she wanted to drown herself in the North Sea, where John Darwin had staged a canoeing accident, but held back for the sake of her sons Mark and Anthony.

The former doctor's receptionist spent years lying to her sons about their father's fate, while knowing all along that he was alive and plotting a £250,000 life insurance fraud.

She said: "I ran out of the house and sat on a bench looking at the sea. I wished, in fact, that John had drowned, but because that hadn't happened I actually considered walking into the sea myself. I felt so desperate.

"But I couldn't do it because of the thought of the effect it would have on the rest of the family, particularly Mark and Anthony. I didn't have the courage to carry it out."

Stepping into the witness box at Teesside Crown Court to give her own account of her part in the deception, quietly-spoken Mrs Darwin claimed her husband had forced her to be part of the plot.

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She admitted, however, that she had told "a pack of lies" when she reported him missing in 2002, and put on an act when she told her two sons their father was "lost" because, she said: "I wanted to make it look real."

Mrs Darwin denies six counts of fraud and nine counts of money laundering, claiming she was the victim of "marital coercion" by her husband.

The seeds of the plot

According to his wife, John Darwin began to talk about faking his own death at the beginning of 2002 when it became clear the couple could not repay debts they had built up on a dozen properties in the north-east.

Mrs Darwin said: "We were sitting in the lounge together and he was paying bills. He said were beginning to struggle for money and that he was probably worth more dead than alive.

"He said he had a solution and it was to fake his death. I didn't take him seriously.

"I thought it was a throwaway comment, I said it was a silly thing to say and how could he possible know how to do that.

"He said he didn't know but he would think of a way."

Mrs Darwin said she suggested selling some of the properties but her husband told her it was "not an option" and "didn't want to see us ending up living in a council house". He told her he planned to "resurrect" himself a few months after his "death".

The canoeing "accident"

Mrs Darwin said she had "pleaded" with her husband not to go through with the fraud, but on March 21, 2002, after pushing his red canoe into the North Sea near their home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, Mr Darwin rang his wife and told her to pick him up and take him to Durham railway station.

She claimed he rang her again within hours of his disappearance, at a time police were still in the family home. He then kept ringing her from call boxes in the Lake District to ask how she was progressing with insurance claims.

A few weeks later Mrs Darwin said she drove to Silloth, near Whitehaven, Cumbria, to collect him so that he could live in secret next door to the family home.

He had so effectively disguised his appearance that at first she failed to recognise the "elderly looking" man limping towards her with a walking stick.

Mrs Darwin said her husband, who believed his entrepreneurial skills would make him a millionaire, then orchestrated the fraud.

She claimed he would stand beside her as she rang insurance companies and pension fund staff, either jotting down notes or whispering instructions.

She said: "If there was something he wanted me to do, he would ask me initially to do it and, if I didn't do it, he would just go on and on at me until I did."

The "grieving widow" act

Anne Darwin claimed she was able to carry off the role of grieving widow because she was in turmoil.

"I virtually felt like a grieving widow," she said. "I'd lost my husband not in the sense that he was dead but that he'd left me.

"I felt distraught and I was ashamed of what was happening. The emotions I showed were genuine emotions".

She burst into tears as David Waters, QC, defending, recalled how she had told her eldest son, Mark: "I think I've lost him. He's gone".

"I can remember doing that," she said. "I had to make it look realistic. I was upset and I knew he would be upset.

She added: "I was anxious. I was nervous. I was upset. I was doing something I wasn't proud of. I suppose I didn't fully consider the consequences. John had left me in a very difficult situation."

The affair

Mrs Darwin alleged for the first time that her "domineering" husband had an affair several years after they married in 1973.

"I was quite obviously upset when I found out about the relationship," she said. "I did consider leaving him, but I just couldn't see a life without him. I didn't know how I would cope on my own so I forgave him."

She also told the court that her husband became "secretive" when he was having internet conversations with a woman in Kansas called Kelly Steele whilst he was hiding in the family home following his faked death.

According to Mrs Darwin he later flew to Kansas to meet Miss Steele, whom he had met through an interactive role-playing website, and lost £30,000 through an investment there.

She did not try to stop him flying to America. "I knew there was no point in arguing because whatever John wanted, John got," she said.

Asked whether she still loved him, she said: "At this moment in time, no."